Walters Fuels USC, 27-20, Past Stanford : Trojans: Sophomore carries 31 times for 234 yards and two touchdowns. Rob Johnson suffers ankle injury again.

Shawn Walters doesn’t look much like Marcus Allen, but his numbers are starting to.

The USC sophomore tailback had another 200-yard-plus game, including a 61-yard touchdown run in the waning moments, a play that would prove decisive in a 27-20 Trojan victory over Stanford before 60,345 on Saturday.

USC (4-2 overall, 3-1 in the Pacific 10) has now won two in a row on the road, both games decided in the final minutes.

This was another expensive victory, however.

The sprained right ankle that kept senior quarterback Rob Johnson out of last week’s victory at Oregon State was injured again, and once again his relief man, sophomore Brad Otton, came on to become the winning quarterback.

Johnson was injured when hit by linebacker Jason White with 8:40 left in the second quarter. At that point, he had completed seven of 10 passes for 109 yards and a touchdown.

Otton, the 6-foot-6 sophomore transfer from Weber State, was 10 for 20 for 114 yards.

Stanford (1-4-1, 0-3), lost despite a 27-for-44, 344-yard night by its senior quarterback, Steve Stenstrom. It was a night when Stenstrom, Rob Johnson’s former El Toro High teammate, became Stanford’s all-time passing yardage leader, passing John Elway by 277 yards in reaching 9,626.

But Stanford lost, for the fourth consecutive game.

And the man most responsible for that was Walters, the six-foot, 220-pound tailback from Arlington, Tex.

He had 31 carries for 234 yards, the most for a Trojan runner since Allen had 243 against Cal in 1981. And when USC needed a big play at the finish, he ran with speed he hadn’t yet shown.

With USC leading by 20-13, the Trojans had a first down on their 39 with 3:56 to play after linebacker Erroll Small intercepted Stenstrom.

Walters’ play was a sweep to the right.

“I was just trying to get that first down,” he said afterward.

“But when I got around that first guy, I thought I had a chance to take it all the way.”

Walters, who woke up last Saturday morning with flu and largely gave way to backup Rodney Sermons at Oregon State, came back emphatically in USC’s 13th victory over Stanford in the last 15 games.

Walters is closing in on a 1,000-yard season. He now has 712, already surpassing the 641 he had as a freshman last year.

“Shawn was an absolute star tonight,” Coach John Robinson said. “He was a dominant player.

“This team is showing spark and spunk; I think it’ll be around for a while.”

Walters said his job Saturday was to take the pressure off Johnson, and then Otton.

“We wanted to take the pressure off the quarterbacks by getting first downs on the ground, and we did that,” he said.

Stanford took a 10-0 lead, but the Trojans went ahead by 17-10 lead with 17 seconds left in the first half on Cole Ford’s 17-yard field goal. Earlier in the second quarter, Walters’ four-yard touchdown gave the Trojans a 14-10 lead.

In the third quarter, USC’s defense stopped Stanford fullback Adam Salina on fourth and goal at the Trojan two. After the Trojans went 92 yards in 5 minutes 39 seconds, Ford kicked a field goal from 23 yards to make the score 20-10 with 2:33 to go in the quarter. Otton was five for eight passing during the drive, the big play a 23-yard play to Keyshawn Johnson.

Stanford’s Eric Abrams kicked a 32-yard field goal to make the score 20-13 late in the third quarter, and then Walters’ long run seemed to put it out of reach.

But Stenstrom wasn’t finished. Throwing eight consecutive times on a 77-yard, 10-play drive, he connected with Brian Manning on a four-yard play at the goal line to make the score 27-20.

Stanford, with 2:02 to play, tried an onside kick that was recovered by USC freshman Larry Parker at the Trojan 45. USC stalled and John Stonehouse had to punt with 24 seconds to go.

He kicked a 40-yarder and the game ended with Stenstrom throwing long passes that fell incomplete.

It was nearly a thousand-yard game. USC finished with 489 total yards, Stanford 494. Stanford Coach Bill Walsh said his defense might have wobbled in the stretch.

“Four or five of our defensive guys played the whole game. . . . There may have been some fatigue,” he said. “We played extremely well at times and self-destructed at others.”

Said USC defensive coordinator Don Lindsey: “Those skill people in that Stanford offense are all seniors and they really know how to execute. We gave up a lot of yards, but we also had a lot of big plays when we needed them too. Our young guys are growing up fast.”

Walters had 127 yards in 16 carries in the first half. When he gave USC its first lead, 13-10, he did it on a four-yard run over the left side, as Johnson was circling the track on a cart bound for the locker room, two bags of ice taped to his ankle.

The Trojans’ go-ahead score came after Stanford was penalized for having too many players on the field on a USC punt. Set up with a first down at the Stanford 42, Otton got USC to the Stanford four on a pass to Keyshawn Johnson and Walters took it in from there.

Coming On Strong

Game-by-game rushing statistics for USC tailback Shawn Walters, who rushed for 234 yards against Stanford Saturday.

Opp. Result Att Yds Avg TD Washington W 24-17 26 91 3.5 2 Penn St. L 38-14 13 34 2.6 0 Baylor W 37-27 31 207 6.7 3 Oregon L 22-7 17 78 4.6 0 Oregon St W 27-19 16 68 4.3 0 Stanford W 27-20 31 234 7.5 2 Totals 134 712 5.3 7